Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Indian Prime Minister Embraces Trump and Incites Massacre of Muslims

While Trump was in India visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to negotiate a lucrative arms deal, Modi’s followers unleashed a veritable hunt against Muslims, the likes of which has not been seen in decades.

Facebook Twitter Share
Image: STR/EFE

In an attempt to smooth over last year’s tariff escalation with Trump, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India welcomed the U.S. president with a huge event in a stadium with more than 100,000 people. “Relations with India have never been better,” Trump said at a press conference Tuesday morning. There, he avoided referring to the demonstrations and the killings that are currently engulfing the country. In return, Trump was rewarded with several cooperation agreements upon his departure and a contract to advance the sale of U.S. helicopters and military equipment to India that is worth about $3 billion.

Tensions are high in northeast New Delhi where Modi’s right-wing Hindu followers have been terrorizing Muslims, unloosing violence the likes of which has not been seen for decades. In just the last two days, in the midst of Trump’s visit, at least 27 people have been killed and more than 200 injured, mostly by gunshots. Mobs have set neighborhoods on fire, particularly those with large sectors of the Muslim working class and poor. These attacks come after months of sustained protests against the government-sponsored Citizenship Amendment Act–a law that provides non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan with a path to citizenship while leaving millions of undocumented Muslims vulnerable to detention or deportation.

Modi won his second term last year on a strong nationalist, anti-Pakistan, and anti-Muslim discourse. In the midst of an economy that shows no signs of growth and high unemployment that has generated massive protests and workers’ strikes, Modi used xenophobia as a weapon to win over the Hindu vote and to avoid blame for the country’s dismal economic state.

After his electoral victory, Modi has maintained this same rhetoric and slate of policies during his second term in office. In less than a year, he has escalated tensions in Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state, by stripping it of its special protections, and has passed a new citizenship law that’s set to disenfranchise millions of Muslims in the country.

Organized Violence

The violence broke out last weekend when a group of protesters blocked the main road in the Jaffrabad neighborhood of New Delhi to protest the xenophobic citizenship law. This action was a part of protests that have been ongoing for several months.

Supporters of Modi and members of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), organized a counter-demonstration in favor of the law. Unsurprisingly, the police were on the side of the right-wing counter-protesters, attacking Muslims specifically and injuring hundreds of people. The inhabitants of Jaffrabad accused the ruling party and the nationalist and xenophobic group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)–which is represented politically by the BJP–of organizing a massacre against Muslims.

In a completely cynical statement, Modi took to Twitter on Wednesday to call on “my brothers and sisters in Delhi to keep the peace.” Meanwhile, the violence continues. For his part, Donald Trump avoided talking about the issue through his 36-hour tour, although he did take advantage of a press conference to attack Venezuela again and announce new sanctions against the Latin American country.

It is not the first time that Modi has incited violence against the Muslim minority in India. When he was head of government of the state of Gujarat in 2002, he was responsible for unleashing a pogrom that slaughtered over a thousand Muslims. This is the first time since 1984, however, that such an attack has taken place in the country’s capital.

Everything indicates that the inflammatory politics practiced by Modi has given him the opportunity to avoid addressing the real crisis that the country is going through, which has sent the economy into a downward spiral and made the lives of the working class and poor increasingly precarious; now many of their lives are in imminent danger as Modi authorizes right-wing attacks against anyone who does not fit the BJP’s vision of a Hindu nationalist state.

Facebook Twitter Share

La Izquierda Diario Argentina

Our Argentinian sister site, part of the international network of La Izquierda Diario

Asia-Pacific

Strike for Wages at Chevron-Australia Could Hit 5 Percent of Global Gas Production

Chevron workers in Western Australia are escalating a strike at two of the world's largest gas facilities. They are demanding wage rises and better working conditions.

Arthur Nicola

September 14, 2023

The Roots of the Rebellion at Foxconn

Jenny Chan is a researcher and professor at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. She is co-author of the book Dying for an iPhone. She spoke with La Izquerda Diario about the causes of the rebellion by workers at the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, China.

Josefina L. Martínez

December 7, 2022
Participants in a memorial ceremony lay flowers to pay respect to a deceased 23-year-old worker in front of the SPC headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. She died in an accident at a baking factory in Pyeongtaek affiliated with SPC on Saturday.

How Workers and Socialists are Responding to a Workplace Death at One of South Korea’s Largest Food Manufacturers

Following a workplace death at SPC group, one of the largest food manufacturers in South Korea, a consumer boycott quickly gained traction. Organized workers and revolutionary socialists are playing a role in this struggle.

Sam Carliner

November 12, 2022
A man holds a Sri Lankan national flag during a protest outside the Parliament complex in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Protests Against Inflation and the IMF Return to Sri Lanka

Protesters, along with unions and political organizations took to the streets of Sri Lanka on Thursday, mobilizing against inflation, staggering food prices, and new IMF adjustment programs ushered in by the the illegitimate government of Wickremesinghe, which replaced Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government by mass demonstrations in July.

MOST RECENT

President Biden visits striking UAW workers in Michigan.

Biden’s Picket Line Visit Doesn’t Mean He Is On Our Side

President Biden’s visit to the UAW picket line shows the strength of the strike — and why it should remain independent from him and the Democrats.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

September 27, 2023

Scabs Will Not Pass: Defend the UAW Strike With Organized Grassroots Power

The Big Three are escalating their use of scabs. The rank and file are fighting back.

Jason Koslowski

September 27, 2023

China’s Rise, ‘Diminished Dependency,’ and Imperialism in Times of World Disorder

In this broad-ranging interview, originally published in LINKS, Trotskyist Fraction member Esteban Mercatante discusses how recent global shifts in processes of capital accumulation have contributed to China’s rise, the new (and old) mechanisms big powers use to plunder the Global South, and its implications for anti-imperialist and working-class struggles today.

Esteban Mercatante

September 22, 2023
President Biden giving a speech on Friday, September 15, about the UAW strike. A UAW sign in the background.

Joe Biden Is Afraid of the UAW Strike. That’s a Good Thing.

A few days ago, Biden called on the bosses of the Big Three automakers to give concessions to the striking UAW workers. It’s because he’s scared of the UAW’s power.

Enid Brain

September 20, 2023